NASCAR: Martin Truex Jr. to Hendrick Motorsports? It could’ve happened

If it were up to former Hendrick Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., Martin Truex Jr. would have been with Rick Hendrick’s NASCAR Cup Series team a long time ago.

Former NASCAR Cup Series driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., the 15-time winner of the Most Popular Driver Award, and 2017 Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. have long been close friends, and they were even teammates at NASCAR’s top level for two seasons at Dale Earnhardt, Inc. back in 2006 and 2007, the latter’s first two seasons as a full-time driver.

Truex also drove for Earnhardt’s Chance 2 Motorsports in the 2004 and 2005 Xfinity Series seasons, and he won the championships both seasons.

He competed full-time for Dale Earnhardt, Inc. in the Cup Series from 2006 to 2008 and for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing in 2009 before moving to Michael Waltrip Racing in 2010.

In 2008, Earnhardt moved to Hendrick Motorsports, where he spent the final 10 seasons of his career.

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And if it were up to the 46-year-old Kannapolis, North Carolina native, he would have been Truex’s teammate at Rick Hendrick’s team as well, something he brought up on a recent episode of the “Dale Jr. Download” podcast.

Truex, who had never competed in a true dirt race before, dominated the Truck Series race on dirt at the four-turn, 0.533-mile (0.858-kilometer) high-banked Bristol Motor Speedway oval in Bristol, Tennessee two weeks ago, leading 105 of 150 laps and winning both stage one and stage two en route to taking the checkered flag.

In his third career Truck Series start and first since 2006, he became the 36th driver to win at least one race in each of the three NASCAR national series.

Truex was the driver to beat in the Cup Series race on dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway as well, leading 126 of 253 laps and winning stage one, but a late flat tire mired him back in 19th place by the time the checkered flag flew.

On the “Dale Jr. Download”, Earnhardt revealed that he had made pitches to Hendrick to hire Truex on several occasions over the years, whenever there was a vacant seat within the organization.

He added that he rubbed it in during Truex’s dominant performance.

"“I love to see Martin do well because he’s one of the drivers I got to work with early on in his career. When Rick was in between drivers, I tried my hardest to get him to hire Martin. He didn’t, there were a couple of other people in the works there and Martin kind of got lost in the shuffle. He hadn’t won as many races at that point in his career.“As soon as he won that first stage, I texted Rick Hendrick, saying, ‘You watching the Truck race? Truex, just dusting ’em man. Don’t you kinda wish you had hired him when I told you to?’ I like to rub that in a little bit. I like to see him do good, he’s a great guy. Hunting buddy…We were texting after the Truck race, he was as surprised as anybody I think.”"

Alas, it never happened, as Truex signed with Furniture Row Racing ahead of the 2014 season and moved to Joe Gibbs Racing after Barney Visser’s team folded following the 2018 season, and he has driven the #19 Toyota for Joe Gibbs ever since. But he and Earnhardt have remained close friends over the years.

Earnhardt retired after the 2017 season.

Truex has won 28 races throughout his Cup Series career, with 25 of those 28 victories coming since the start of the 2016 season. He more than doubled his career win total in 2016 with four wins, and he did so again in 2017 with a career-high eight en route to his championship. He added four more in 2018 and seven more in 2019 before a down year in 2020 saw him win just once.

He won the race at Phoenix Raceway back in mid-March and sits in third place in the championship standings through the first seven races of the 36-race 2021 season.

The next race on the schedule is scheduled to take place this evening at Martinsville Speedway, where Truex has won two of the last three races going back to October 2019. The Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 is set to be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1 beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET.